By KTUU News Staff Channel 2 News KTUU

12:07 p.m. AKST, November 21, 2012
ANCHORAGE, Alaska—

Alaska has about 17,000 federal employees and about 10 percent of them are eligible to retire before the end of the year.

Those employees are taking advantage of expiring pension benefits, leaving a gaping hole in Alaska's workforce.

State economists are trying to predict how that will affect federal jobs in the future, including whether there are enough qualified employees to fill the holes.

Neal Fried, an economist with the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said the federal budget will also have a big impact on federal jobs in the state.

“As Alaskans we will be watching really closely what happens -- there are all these discussions with the fiscal cliff and all these other things,” Fried said. “What happens with the federal budget has a bigger influence on Alaska's economy than just about anywhere else in the country.”

In a news release, Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office said that many federal employees were eligible for retirement, and it’s causing a backlog of six to nine months for the Office of Personnel Management.

“I'm sure they can fill some of those jobs, there's no doubt about it, the question is: are they going to fill most of them, are they going to fill half of them? And I don't know,“ Fried said. “The fewer they fill, those are -- could be -- potential lost jobs to the economy.”